I'm planning to buy a Fractal Design R4 and a Sapphire R9 290 tri-x oc card. I don't have either and plan to purchase them online so I won't see them until they arrive.

The video card itself has aftermarket cooling from Sapphire which makes it unusually long, about 11.6 inches. I've heard stories of some people having trouble making this card fit. So, for those who know the R4 case very well, will this card fit? If not, plan B would be to cut away some metal or plastic that's in the way. I only expect to use 3 bays (SSD/HDD/CD) and I'm pretty handy so alteration wouldn't be a problem.

The follow up question is whether or not such a long card (with or without case modification) would significantly disrupt the air flow in such as way that it ruins the integrity of the design resulting in poor cooling or extra noise. Comments on that would also be appreciated.

The R4 has 2 removable hdd cages, top holds 5 drives, the bottom hold 3. Since you only going to use 2 of this slots, remove the top cage and any gpu should fit, I would add another fan so it gets some fresh air and you end up with positive pressure.

The R4 has 2 removable hdd cages, top holds 5 drives, the bottom hold 3. Since you only going to use 2 of this slots, remove the top cage and any gpu should fit, I would add another fan so it gets some fresh air and you end up with positive pressure.

Thanks, this is just what I wanted to know. I'm pretty ignorant on case air flow design. The Sapphire video card I plan to run is cooled with 3 fans so that's a lot of air movement, but because it's on the card, not the case wall, how would it effect case pressure? (FYI: I also plan to use a Xeon E3-1230 which I will not be overclocking.)

When you say add a fan, do you mean add one to the side of the case? I was planning to buy the R4 version without a window and I was hoping to not have to use another fan in hopes of keeping it a little quieter.

Personally I don't recommend the r9 290X way to much heat and power consumption, if I were buying a top end card the msi gtx780ti would be my pick, can't link you much ATM as I'm on my iPad, but check techpowerup review of it, it's a very quiet card for what it delivers, and if my memory doesn't fail me, they said it was the best card they have tested in a lot of years, and scored 9.9 / 10.

Now on the extra fan, was for the front, the R4 comes with only 2 fans from factory, one on the back for exhaust and one on the front for intake, my suggestion is to add the second on the front, so you end up with two in and one out. As a suggestion, check Antec True Quiet 140, I just bought one fOr testing, and I agree with spcr, really one of the best 140s in terms of sonic signature, doesn't move tons of air but still very good, it's max rpms is 750 (if memory doesn't betray me), best part it's that it's cheap, sometimes at $10 free shipping.

Personally I don't recommend the r9 290X way to much heat and power consumption, if I were buying a top end card the msi gtx780ti would be my pick, can't link you much ATM as I'm on my iPad, but check techpowerup review of it, it's a very quiet card for what it delivers, and if my memory doesn't fail me, they said it was the best card they have tested in a lot of years, and scored 9.9 / 10.

Consider taking another look at the Anandtech link from my last post. Sapphire has made significant improvements over the stock R9 290. (I'm not considering the 290 "X") In particular, check out the noise levels in which the Sapphire beats the GTX 780ti at idle and load. That said, the ti is better for gaming performance on future gaming, but for me the Sapphire is already more than I need. Not least of all, Sapphire's version of this card lists for $449. The GTX 780 ti lists for $700. So while you raise some good points, I don't know that it's worth the extra money. I started looking in early December and would have made the purchase already except that the bitcoin madness is making for irrational pricing. Back in December all the tech websites were expecting pricing to calm down by now but it's only gotten worse. I guess I'll give it another month! That said, I'll check out techpowerup and I do appreciate your suggestions.

Quote:

Now on the extra fan, was for the front, the R4 comes with only 2 fans from factory, one on the back for exhaust and one on the front for intake, my suggestion is to add the second on the front, so you end up with two in and one out. As a suggestion, check Antec True Quiet 140, I just bought one fOr testing, and I agree with spcr, really one of the best 140s in terms of sonic signature, doesn't move tons of air but still very good, it's max rpms is 750 (if memory doesn't betray me), best part it's that it's cheap, sometimes at $10 free shipping.

This is good information. For $10 or so I'll probably just get one and try it out. I'm not in a position to try out hardware or designs. I have to rely on the web for info then buy the rig all at once and hope it all comes together. I'd prefer to build the best PC I can for the money and have it last me 5-6 years with no upgrades and no overclocking. The gaming build I'm considering should beat current PS4 and Xbox ONE so this is why I believe it should have good longevity.

In terms of power consumption, again referring to the Anandtech review, your point about the GTX 780 ti vs. the Sapphire rings true. At idle they are the same, but at load you can see a difference. Ironically, at load, the Sapphire runs cooler and quieter than the GTX 780 ti despite consuming more power. The example given is FurMark at load where the Sapphire consumes 412 watts while the GTX 780 ti rates at 374. Pairing up the Sapphire and a Xeon E3 1230 (NOT overclocked) CPU, what PSU would you recommend with a consideration for low noise?

Consider taking another look at the Anandtech link from my last post. Sapphire has made significant improvements over the stock R9 290. (I'm not considering the 290 "X") In particular, check out the noise levels in which the Sapphire beats the GTX 780ti at idle and load. That said, the ti is better for gaming performance on future gaming, but for me the Sapphire is already more than I need. Not least of all, Sapphire's version of this card lists for $449. The GTX 780 ti lists for $700. So while you raise some good points, I don't know that it's worth the extra money. I started looking in early December and would have made the purchase already except that the bitcoin madness is making for irrational pricing. Back in December all the tech websites were expecting pricing to calm down by now but it's only gotten worse. I guess I'll give it another month! That said, I'll check out techpowerup and I do appreciate your suggestions.

Personally i dont trust any site aside from SPCR for noise and sonic signature of fans, that said, there is not much GPU tested here, so something has to be used to compare, personally i like TechpowerUp, as they review tons of GPUs, and for practical purposes thats what i tend to use, so we can compeare apples to apples. Sadly they didnt test the None X version, only the Sapphire R9 290X Tri-X OC 4 GB, has an idle of 28db and load of 37db, probably the none X is lower, now the MSI GTX780ti has 24db idle and 30db load.... thats a lot of difference from the 290X, sadly there is no way to compare the version you are looking for, but i doubt it will match the 30db of the N780ti, again assumptions on my part, but not much else i can do. Weather its worth the difference in price only you can decide, besides there are aftermarket coolers like Prolimatech MK-26 Multi-VGA Cooler that should be able to handle the 290 easily and still have a very quiet setup.

joeythebull wrote:

Pairing up the Sapphire and a Xeon E3 1230 (NOT overclocked) CPU, what PSU would you recommend with a consideration for low noise?

If you want lower price PSU, look into golden certification likeCorsair RM Series 650 (there is other wattage to chose, if you want more or less).SeaSonic G Series SSR-550RM (there are other wattage versions, but really good psu for the money).

Again, thanks for the advice. I appreciate your PSU recommendations and will research the ones you mention in more detail.

Regarding Fractal Design R4, are the two stock case fans quiet enough on their own or would you replace those with the Antec True Quiet 140 or some other fans?

Warning: Some real geeky math and perhaps flawed methodology ahead!

I saw the MSI GTX 780 ti article on Techpowerup. 30 is impressive, much better than the 36 of the stock GTX 780 ti. That's a 17% reduction in noise. The Anandtech article I linked doesn't show the MSI GTX 780 ti, but it does represent the stock GTX 780 ti which it rates at 51.7 db. If you reduce that amount of noise by 17%, you get 42 which puts it on par with the Sapphire at 41.1. Likewise, the techpowerup article DOES compare the R9 290 (stock) which it rates at a loud 49. Anandtech also rates and compares the stock R9 290 to the Sapphire R9 290 which are rated at 57.2 and 41.1, respectively. This means the Sapphire achieved a 28% reduction in noise. Impressive, but the stock R9 290s are notoriously loud. Going back to the techpowerup article, if you reduce the 49 score by 28%, you get 35 db, which is once again on par with the techpowerup's rating for the MSI GTX 780 ti at 36. At least that's one way of comparing the two articles and the two cards...

Well, I just saw a good deal on the Fractal R4 at newegg so I think I'll pick it up. Thank you very much for all your help and advice. I haven't totally ruled out the MSI GTX 780ti. I'll need to consider the system on the whole and see what kind of noise I'm making. The Sapphire might require a beefier PSU which might make the whole build louder on balance.

I saw the MSI GTX 780 ti article on Techpowerup. 30 is impressive, much better than the 36 of the stock GTX 780 ti. That's a 17% reduction in noise. The Anandtech article I linked doesn't show the MSI GTX 780 ti, but it does represent the stock GTX 780 ti which it rates at 51.7 db. If you reduce that amount of noise by 17%, you get 42 which puts it on par with the Sapphire at 41.1. Likewise, the techpowerup article DOES compare the R9 290 (stock) which it rates at a loud 49. Anandtech also rates and compares the stock R9 290 to the Sapphire R9 290 which are rated at 57.2 and 41.1, respectively. This means the Sapphire achieved a 28% reduction in noise. Impressive, but the stock R9 290s are notoriously loud. Going back to the techpowerup article, if you reduce the 49 score by 28%, you get 35 db, which is once again on par with the techpowerup's rating for the MSI GTX 780 ti at 36. At least that's one way of comparing the two articles and the two cards..

That is not how dB work, they are logarithmic. I don't know the details of sound measurement, but I know how logarithms work. So, while what you wrote above is non-sense, what I write below may not be right either.

Because dB are logarithmic (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decibel) if object A produces a tenth as much sound as object B, it is 10 decibels quieter. If device C will reduce the sound produced by object A by sqrt(10)~3.16 it will reduce it by 5 dB. This means you should be adding and subtracting when you are multiplying.

So the 30 is a 6 dB reduction, not a 17%. So your 42 should actually be 45.7. Your 28% should be 16.1 dB. Making your 35 dB, 33 dB.

This assumes the actual sound intensities are being multiplied. It is hard to think of what kind of effect would produce a multiplicative factor on quantity measured logarithmically. It would have to exponentiate the underling quantity. So to increase a dB rating by say, 20%, would mean that if the original object produced X amount of sound energy, it would now produce X^(1.2) sound energy. That doesn't even make dimensional sense.

ha ha, I was afraid of that but based on the justification you offered, I accept your conclusion. Thanks for clearing that up. I can't really speak to your methodology, but when it comes to adding/subtracting db, my concern would be that the different testing environments would make the add/subtract method questionable. Tom's hardware (Feb GPU guide) categorizes the GTX 780 ti in a higher performance bracket than the R9 290 which makes sense when you look at the higher performance of the 780 when the settings are turned up. This also explains why the GTX lists for $250 more than the sapphire. However, in current real world bitcom era prices the difference is only about $100. That said, the R9 290 gives you an extra GB of mem which might have an impact in future gaming.

Regarding Fractal Design R4, are the two stock case fans quiet enough on their own or would you replace those with the Antec True Quiet 140 or some other fans?

Noise or quiet enough.... are things that only you can judge as we all have different parameters. The Fractal 140 R2 fans (included with the case) are decent, probably i would say better than what most include in their cases in terms of noise, but they are nothing special either, they are just decent fans, i would test them first, but i had the chance to play with antec true quiet 140 and to me its best fan i have tested on 140s, really good specially for the money, at the same time this are low rpm fans, so cooling is also diminished, so its up to you cooling needs and you desire to create a very quiet setup. Paired with an Asus Haswell mobo with FanXpert2 its a very nice setup in terms of control, it can efectivly drop the antec true quiet to 200rpms, where they dont move much air, but i cant hear anything either, you can tweak it to your liking, so up to you, even at 500rpm they are decently quiet, at 700rpm i can hear a slight woshh still not bothering, but in a very quiet evoirment you will notice them.... now with i can tell you for sure that the Saphire will be much louder than this fans for sure, even the MSI, so at the end i would recomend to test the included frist and if you feel like they are not good enough you can go with the true quiet 140s.

I'll leave you a couple of graphs of the fractals and antecs under fanXpert2,

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